All that’s excellent in her sex is this lady! Until by matrimonial or equal intimacies I have found her less than angel, it is impossible to think of any other. Then there are so many stimulatives to such a spirit as mine in this affair, besides love: such a field for stratagem and contrivance, which thou knowest to be the delight of my heart. Then the rewarding end of all—to carry off such a girl as this, in spite of all her watchful and implacable friends; and in spite of a prudence and reserve that I never met with in any of the sex. What a triumph! What a triumph over the whole sex! And then such a revenge to gratify, which is only at present politically reined in, eventually to break forth with the greater fury. Is it possible, thinkest thou, that there can be room for a thought that is not of her, and devoted to her?

But be this as it may, there is a present likelihood of room for glorious mischief. A confederacy had been for some time formed against me; but the uncles and the nephew are now to be double-servanted (single-servanted they were before), and those servants are to be double-armed when they attend their masters abroad. This indicates their resolute enmity to me, and as resolute favour to Solmes.

The reinforced orders for this hostile apparatus are owing, it seems, to a visit I made yesterday to their church; a good place to begin a reconciliation in, were the heads of the family christians, and did they mean anything by their prayers. My hopes were to have an invitation (or, at least, to gain a pretence) to accompany home the gloomy sire; and so get an opportunity to see my goddess: for I believed they durst not but be civil to me, at least. But they were filled with terror, it seems, at my entrance; a terror they could not get over. I saw it indeed in their countenances; and that they all expected something extraordinary to follow. And so it should have done, had I been more sure than I am of their daughter’s favour. Yet not a hair of any of their stupid heads do I intend to hurt.

Thus, Jack, as thou desirest, have I written: written upon something; upon nothing; upon revenge, which I love; upon love, which I hate, heartily hate, because ‘tis my master: and upon the devil knows what besides: for, looking back, I’m amazed at the length of it. Thou mayest read it: I would not for a king’s ransom—but so as I do but write, thou sayest thou wilt be pleased.

Be pleased then. I command thee to be pleased: if not for the writer’s, or written’s sake, for thy word’s sake. And so in the royal style (for am I not likely to be thy king and thy emperor, in the great affair before us?) I bid thee very heartily

Farewell

Letter 34: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Friday, March 17

I receive, with great pleasure, the early and cheerful assurances of your loyalty and love.

I would have thee, Jack, come down as soon as thou canst.

Thou wilt find me at a little alehouse; they call it an inn; the White Hart; most terribly wounded (but by the weather only) the sign—in a sorry village, within five miles from Harlowe Place. Everybody knows Harlowe Place—for, like Versailles, it is sprung up from a dunghill within every elderly person’s remembrance. Every poor body, particularly, knows it: but that only for a few years past, since a certain angel has appeared there among the sons and daughters of men.

The people here at the Hart are poor but honest; and have gotten it into their heads that I am a man of quality in disguise, and there is no reining in their officious respect. There is a pretty little smirking daughter, seventeen six days ago: I call her my Rosebud. Her grandmother (for there is no mother) a good neat old woman as ever filled a wicker-chair in a chimney-corner has besought me to be merciful to her.

This is the right way with me. Many and many a pretty rogue had I spared, whom I did not spare, had my power been acknowledged and my mercy been in time implored.

This simple chit (for there is a simplicity in her thou wilt be highly pleased with: all humble; all officious; all innocent. I love her for her humility, her officiousness and even for her innocence) will be pretty amusement to thee, while I combat with the weather, and dodge and creep about the walls and purlieus of Harlowe Place. Thou wilt see in her mind, all that her superiors have been taught to conceal in order to render themselves less natural, and more undelightful.

But I charge thee, that thou do not (what I would not permit myself to do, for the world—I charge thee, that thou do not) crop my Rosebud. She is the only flower of fragrance that has blown in this vicinage for ten years past, or will for ten years to come: for I have looked backward to the have-been’s, and forward to the will-be’s, having but too much leisure upon my hands in my present waiting.

I never was so honest for so long together since my matriculation. It behoves me so to be. Some way or other, my recess may be found out; and it will then be thought that my Rosebud has attracted me. A report in my favour from simplicities so amiable may establish me; for the grandmother’s relation to my Rosebud may be sworn to: and the father is an honest poor man: has no joy but in his Rosebud.

The gentle heart is touched by Love! Her soft bosom heaves with a passion she has not yet found a name for. I once caught her eye following a young carpenter, a widow neighbour’s son, living (to speak in her dialect) at the little white house over the way. A gentle youth he also seems to be, about three years older than herself: playmates from infancy till his eighteenth and her fifteenth year furnished a reason for a greater distance in show, while their hearts gave a better for their being nearer than ever: for I soon perceived the love reciprocal: a scrape and a bow at first seeing his pretty mistress; turning often to salute her following eye; and when a winding lane was to deprive him of her sight his whole body turned round, his hat more reverently doffed, than before. This answered (for, unseen, I was behind her) by a low curtsy, and a sigh that Johnny was too far off to hear!

I have examined the little heart: she has made me her confidant. She owns she could love Johnny Barton very well: and Johnny Barton has told her he could love her better than any maiden he ever saw.